Labour MEP Alfred Sant has voted against a European Parliament report on the stocktaking of European elections because it deviates towards the imposition of a Euro-centrist agenda for future EP elections.

This ignores the democratic political traditions and demographic structures of the different Member States forming the European Union.

The resolution discussed in the plenary of the European Parliament aims to analyse citizens’ participation in last year’s European elections as well as assessing the institutional and political framework in which the elections took place.

It presents a long list of proposals, which in many aspects attempt to alter and unify the different voting rules for European elections in the different member states.

Alfred Sant acknowledged that the plenary vote removed a number of contestable proposals by the EP’s Committee for Constitutional Affairs such as calls for transnational lists and a change to the one Commissioner per member state rule.

However, the resolution still contained proposals on which he expressed disagreement. In particular, it aims at imposing uniform rules on the establishment of political parties, admission rules for candidates, and voting rights.

“Any attempt to ride roughshod over constitutional traditions developed in the course of decades and centuries could be dangerous as it opens up a whole range of manoeuvre for the extreme right to attack and undermine national democratic freedoms”, Alfred Sant told the European Parliament.

The resolution also requests a transformation of the Council of the EU into a second legislative chamber of the Union. According to Alfred Sant, this half-baked proposal neither fits into the requirements of a federal union nor into those of a European Union, which claims to promote unity through diversity. 

The report was adopted with 468 in favour, 194 against, and 34 abstentions.